Test Drive: Volvo S60 gets a nose job

Sep. 21, 2013
|

The Volvo S60. / Volvo

by USA TODAY, James R. Healey

by USA TODAY, James R. Healey

You remember Volvo. That Swedish car company that once owned the safety "space."

Volvo has lost its outright ownership of the safety image, despite years of exhortations from its U.S. staff, who foresaw that everybody eventually would boast an unassailable array of safety features. Volvo still gets good crash-test scores, it just isn't safety-famous nowadays.

Back in 2010, Volvo was bought by the Chinese company that makes China's Geely automobiles. Volvo swears it's still an independent Swedish car company, not a puppet that'll make lux-mobiles for China, or provide an established dealer network to funnel Geely cars into the U.S.

The significant thing about the latest S60 is Volvo's extensive trouble and expense for what's normally considered a mid-cycle freshening. The whole front end has been redone, requiring new factory dies and other major industrial changes.

The point was to make the car look wider by changing the headlights significantly and "de-snouting" the front end. Everything from the windshield pillar forward is new outside and mostly new underneath, as well.

Great to see such integrity, rather than just slap in some LED headlights and call it "all-new" as some might do. But is it the best use of Volvo's money?

At least it still looks great. Important because the S60's appearance is a strong drawing card, and S60 is 39% of Volvo's U.S. sales. Missteps not allowed here.

On all but the lowest-level version of the T5 model, the instrument panel has the faux instruments that everybody's doing. No real mechanical gauges, but simulations of them via new technology.

And, of course, you can configure how the display looks, also a trendy feature. Nothing wrong with that, but once you get it the way you want, we bet you won't change. Maybe another driver in the household will, but, again, is that the best use of Volvo's money?

The pretty well-equipped T5 Premium test car ($38,065) lacked navigation and a backup camera. The automaker's money might have been better spent making those things standard on all models. Seems likely that more people would turn down a car without navi/backup than would do so because it lacked a gee-whiz dashboard.

Here's what stood out, good and bad, during our time in the S60:

Engine: A five-cylinder turbocharged rig with 250 horsepower, it had a coarse sound on start-up and at low speed, but smoothed in sound and feel very quickly. Quite responsive; plenty for most people. The higher-up model, called T6, has a 300-hp six-cylinder engine.

Those powerplants are temporary. Volvo says that starting next January, the S60 gets the company's new family of engines. They are four-cylinder turbos. The less-powerful model will have about 240 hp and will retain the T5 designation. The more-powerful four, with both a turbo and a supercharger, will be rated about 300 hp and called T6.

Expect them to be mated to eight-speed automatics, replacing today's six-speed boxes.

Smaller engines and more-sophisticated transmissions should use less fuel, Volvo says, helping meet U.S. mileage regulations in future years.

Seats: Driver's was excellent. Front passenger's not quite as good. Back was absurdly cramped. No good for any but short folks and only then if short people are in front, too.

Interior: The contrasting leather was scrumptious. The plastic vastness of the dashboard's top surface wasn't. It was a pebbled surface and soft enough to meet today's soft-touch mania, but it looked more like a commodity covering than a treatment as premium as the seat upholstery.

The center stack of controls placed on a panel below the dash and above the console leaves, by design, a big empty space behind (toward the front of the car), a "floating" panel that Volvo pioneered. The empty space is useful as a storage area, but devoid of plugs (which are the new cup holders). A great place to have put an array of USB receptacles and 12-volt outlets.

Volvo says it would rather have users keep their devices inside the console and use plugs there. That keeps them out of sight and less-likely to fly about in a fast stop or crash. And the console is deep, if not very wide.

Doors: The firmest, most solid-feeling and sounding we've come across in a long time.